Quotes for Drummers

You only get better by playing. – Buddy Rich

When I listen to drummers, I like to be able to say 'Oh! I haven't heard that before.' Being yourself is so much better than sounding like anyone else. Ginger Baker's thing is that he is himself. So it's no good trying to do what he does.--John Bonham

I used to practice eight hours a day, every day! From about 1956 until about 1962. It was a whole thing, a whole period in my life where nothing else was happening. – Tony Williams

Almost everything I've done, I've done through my own creativity. I don't think I ever had to listen to anyone else to learn how to play drums. I wish I could say that for about ten thousand other drummers.--Buddy Rich

I used to practice anywhere from four to eight hours a day when I first started, from the age of thirteen to when I was about twenty-four. – Elvin Jones

Become the best musician that you can be because that is your product – your own personal musicianship. – Steve Smith

Get the product happening, diversify and think of it as a business. You want to be well known for what you’re doing so you need to be on top of your game. – Russ Miller

Nowadays you not only have to be the best drummer you can be but also the best programmer you can be, the best producer you can be and the best engineer you can be. You have to know about distribution, negotiations, law, contracts, publishing, royalties, etc. – there are so many components and so many levels. – Thomas Lang

I do not allow myself to take any negative comment in a personal way.- Johnny Rabb

You have to fight beyond it (self-doubt) and don’t let it stand in the way of you being what you want to be. – David Garibaldi

You’re confidence is what keeps people calling you to work. - Jimmy Cobb

Try to be very assertive without stepping on peoples toes - John ‘JR’ Robinson

Every drummer that had a name, had a name because of his individual playing. He didn’t sound like anybody else, So everybody that I ever listened to, in some form, influenced my taste. – Buddy Rich

Playing fast around the drums is one thing. But to play music, to play with people for others to listen to, that’s something else. That’s a whole other world. – Tony Williams
 
What’s this all about? It’s about music, it’s not about anything else, it’s not about having the coolest cover, or the coolest title, or about anything. It’s just about music. – Lars Ulrich

My audience was my life. What I did and how I did it was all for my audience. – Cab Calloway

Inspiration is not inside of us. Inspiration comes from outside. It comes from our spiritual guides and from different energies that are in the universe. If we keep in touch with god and our spiritual guides, just knowing that they exist and they are there for us, gives us the strength to say well this is a bad phase but it’s going to end and when it ends I’m going to do something good. – Airto

I generally sell my records online or at the show. You can undersell the distributor and the stores, and people know what they’re getting cause they’ve just seen you live. – Roy Ayers

I always told the musicians in my band to play with what they know, and then to play above that. Because anything can happen, and that’s where great art and music happens. – Miles Davis

The only cats worth anything are the cats that take chances, sometimes I play things I’ve never heard myself. – Thelonius Monk

Now Kill It! DN

I do like to look at female drummers, because I am one.-Caroline Corr

When I speak of natural drummers I'm talking about guys that are playing with the talent God gave 'em. -Gene Krupa